Decrepitaph - Profane Doctrines Unburied (2011)

Some people work 40 hours or more each week. Some people just spend 40 hours each week watching their investments on an iPad while they sip martinis by the pool on their private yacht. But some, rarer specimens spend about 80 hours per week laying out drum tracks for brutal, old school death metal albums. Alright, maybe just one individual: Elektrokutioner, who returns to Decrepitaph with multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sinworm to produce yet another tour of the morgues and sepulchers of puerile antiquity. Profane Doctrines Unburied is the third full-length from this project, and it picks up directly where the Conjuring Chaos EP and previous efforts left off, in the sullen murk and decay of a genre that still writhes like a pile of corpse-worms just beneath the surface soil of the present.

Intricacy is not the mindset here, but thudding riffs and percussion that compete for guttural space with Sinworm's entirely blunt invocations of rotting flesh and morbid ritual. Like the past albums, you'll hear traces from a wealth of archaic influences like late 80s Obituary, Deicide, Pestilence, Autopsy, Incantation and so forth, spliced with some resonant, creepy doom melodies in "Desecrate Sacred Flesh" or "A Suffocating Evil". Like Condemned Cathedral or Beyond the Cursed Tombs, this seems to be a rather well rounded effort without the strength of distinct, individual tracks, so its best left to those times in which you commit 50 minutes to festering, overbearing gloom and bludgeoning evil, without even the illusion of hope. Personally I found the deeper I traveled into the content here, the more hypnotic the experience would become, as if my corpulent form was being used as the focus of some foul summoning act. It seems to climax around "Mortified Spirits" and "Domain of the Occult", but it's also 'fun' getting there, and I like the instrumental "Ghost of the Gallows" quite a lot.

Whether your craving old school death or death/doom (like Hooded Menace or one of Elektrokutioner's other bands, Father Befouled) without the usual Swedish sound off, Profane Doctrines Unburied should do the trick. It moves with all the spunk of a shambling corpse just reanimated in a peat bog: slow, but just as pestilent and deadly if it can clasp its groaning jaws upon your appendages. The entire album reeks of obscurity and disease, and it's just as tight as either of its predecessors. No fucking around, no fucking off, simply sincere and accursed old grandfatherly gore that can sooth the horror obsessed misanthrope dwelling inside each sick one of you. Fuck the future. Let the past swallow you anew.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (bodies aching for consumption)

http://www.myspace.com/decrepitaph

Decrepitaph - Conjuring Chaos EP (2010)

The Lone Star State lobbyists for a return to the primal roots of evil death metal could not be any more different than their brutal, acrobatic counterparts from that region, and the Conjuring Chaos EP continues to indulge the antiquated ear of the morbid, early 90s purist who pines for the days of old Autopsy, Gorguts, Entombed, Incantation and Obituary. This is one of the more successful acts of the prolific drummer/writer Elektrokutioner, and having heard the burgeoning old-school blemishes of Condemned Cathedral and Beyond the Cursed Tombs, both good but not great, one only crosses his festering fingers in anticipation of where and when this band will truly break through the cemetery soil into a realm of utter, ghastly bliss.

If Conjuring Chaos is any indication, that time might be coming soon, because I enjoyed the four originals here considerably more than the full-length material which has to date seen release. There is an enhanced sense of intricacy in the composition, while neglecting to abandon the brute strength of the band's simpler, doomed melodies and stomping corpsepile groove riffs. "Conjuring Chaos" teases with an eerie duet of clean and electric guitars, like some daring scholar or detective as he lights a lantern to explore the nearby mausoleum after a series of mysterious disappearances. The meat of the track is charging, writhing worm-like old school death burdened with Sinworm's colossally gore-soaked grunts, seething in a hybrid of early Swedish and Florida guitar tones. "Birth of Hideous Apparitions" is noteworthy for the slower, crushing climax in which skeletal walls churn and raise from the necrotic abyss, a simple, plaintive lead played like a coronet from a deathly herald's lacking lips.

"Demonfeast" offers us a scathing inferno of hostile fiber, all doomed, downtrodden note patterns played with frivolous abandon, explosions of gnarled, rotting leads betraying the song's almost defiant resistance to running with any particular momentum. "The Loathsome Altar" is one of the better tracks here, decaying atmospheres of oppressive, thick brutality broken by the thrust of the spade into the grave-soil, digging in or digging up the forgotten contents. As a surprise, there is a cover of hardcore legend Minor Threat's "Seeing Red" tucked onto the EP, which seems completely out of place here, as the tones are simply too different from the band's normal material. I feel that a ghastly death metal rendition of this track would have been more appropriate, so it does break up the consistency.

This is a small run release limited to about 1500 copies of cassette and CD combined, through a label other than Razorback, so you'll want to snag it up quickly. The quality of the four original tracks is easily on par with anything the band have yet released, but I still feel like the Texas two are capable of far more. The samples, for instance, are adequate, but do not flow passionately into the material. The riffs are improving but could still be a little more vile, and some of the grooves more ballistic. I feel like Decrepitaph are on a slow but steady and sure slope towards inevitable greatness, but we've yet to see that final acceleration to place them at the standard of their lords and masters. Still, this should enthrall those seeking pestilent resonance from the genre's catacombs.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

http://www.decrepitaph.com/

Decrepitaph - Beyond the Cursed Tombs (2010)

Decrepitaph is an interesting band, hailing from Texas (though the drummer Elektrokutioner once played in a bunch of local bands like Scum Bitch, Eternal Suffering and Skulleton here in New England), but sounding much more akin to the crude death metal of the earlier European scene. Their horror inspired lyrics and campy old school veneer make them a perfect fit for Razorback. With a numbing, full bodied guitar tone that reminds of old Entombed, but a pacing that often crawls more along the Bolt Thrower path, Beyond the Cursed Tombs is a solid followup to their 2008 debut Condemned Cathedral.

I can't say I love all the songwriting, because it's hardly possessive of any more ambition than to simply deliver on its 'back to the roots' mentality, but they do manage to keep the riffs from becoming a slog-fest of mediocrity, and this is accomplished through simple dynamic shifts. Nothing is extended out beyond where it needs to be. They rip at you with a driving barrage of open picking and then break for a mosh, or a subtle lead, and the leads deserve credit for helping elevate this over just another tribute band. For all their simplicity, they evoke a massive amount of creepy mystique ("Castle of the Doomed" is a fine example of this). Coincidentally, that is one of the better songs on the album, along with the turbulent crusher "It Shrieks from Below", the carnal crunch of "Repugnant Manifestations" and the plodding manifestations of "Desecrated Divinity". The 10+ minute title track closer also deserves a mention, an 'epic' which paces itself with a lengthy, atmospheric haunting intro and a lot of, dare I say 'graceful' melody that breaks up the necromantic surge of its retro riffing.

I'd say that overall, this is a slightly better offering than Condemned Cathedral, for its primal refinements. It doesn't feel as raw as that album, but it makes up for it with slightly better riffs and lyrics, the latter of which have a lot more to them than one might expect out of a band so fun and old school as this one. Decrepitaph could certainly up the ante far more than this, but Beyond the Cursed Tombs is a very well rounded, complete experience which successfully bridges the narrow gap between classic, morbid horror and gut busting, classic death metal, which if you can remember, used to thrive on its frightening tones and implications rather than the technical Olympics it has begun to sate the attention spans of the competitive and short fused younger generations. Not perfect, but if Texas is ever to produce a Left Hand Path or Mental Funeral, my money is on Decrepitaph as the author.

Highlights: It Shrikes from Below, Castle of the Doomed, Beyond the Cursed Tombs

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (scalpels dripping final remnants)

http://www.myspace.com/decrepitaph

Decrepitaph - Ressurected and Rotting EP (2009)

Following up last year's decent debut album, Condemned Cathedral, Texan old school cult Decrepitaph have issued a limited edition 7" EP with a pair of new tracks, an intro and outro.

"Resurrected (intro)" swells with dark ambient synths for just over a minute before the death-doom tones of "Apocalyptic Pandemonium" embark on their bleak journey. Once the track picks up, it becomes another decent offering in the vein of total oldschool, crushing madness ala early Asphyx, Grave, Death, Bolt Thrower and Autopsy. Most of the chords are lumbering, fuzzed out behemoths, so when a simple melodic guitar line enters it carves out a vile moonlit path through the crush. "The Undead Shrines" opens with a distorted, doom bass line and some subtle dischords, gradually picking up into the better of the two tracks. The "Rotting (outro)" offers a brief closure with some more creepy synths, and the EP has come and gone.

Resurrected and Rotting features the same, bludgeoning tone as their debut album, so consider this an after-dinner mint, or a glass of the wine of ages, to lull you into despair before their next cobwebbed, full-course meal.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.decrepitaph.com/

Decrepitaph - Condemned Cathedral (2008)

Razorback has always had an excellent ear for releasing killer, fun old school death and grind metal. Texans Decrepitaph are no exception to that rule, and while I can't hold this record in such high regard as I would hold other Razorback bands like Ghoul, Frightmare, Crypticus, etc, it's a good time. And this good time is achieved through a delightful simplicity. 100% old school brutal death metal which sounds like it could have come out in 1987.

After a nice sample, "Possessed by Blasphemy" arrives with a wall of Satanic gore. Sludging, punching guitars performing the most simplest of rhythms to the plodding drums. The vocals are primarily guttural, but you can hear some of the snarlier vocals layered in there. "Unholy Crucifixion" is just fucking savage, you have to love that distorted tone on the guitars and bass, and once again, the absolutely lack of pretention, the utter simplicity to what they are doing. The album is quite consistent, but some tracks I'd pick out are "Morbid Ritual", "The Labyrinth of Bones", and the closer "Crawling Out from the Crypt" with its crushing doomy guitars.

This album isn't going to appeal to everyone. In particular, there is nothing remotely technical about it, the band isn't playing a million miles an hour. This may turn off younger death metal fans with a severe case of ADD, but if you remember the early days of Death, Hellhammer, Possessed, and their ilk, and long for bands that can take death metal by its roots and seed an entirely new forest of gore, then Razorback has delivered yet another band you will enjoy.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.decrepitaph.com/